A former financial planner in Connecticut who was barred from the broker-dealer industry earlier this year has now been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of purchasing and selling securities without paying for them, a scheme known as “free-riding.” His scheme involved $6.9 million in deposits at four different broker-dealers, the SEC said.

On Dec. 8, the agency filed charges against advisor Andrew M. Komarow in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, saying he requested $6.9 million in deposits to 11 brokerage accounts at the four firms. “Before those fund transfers were reversed, Komarow was permitted by the broker-dealers to use some of those funds during the ‘immediate access’ period to engage in speculative securities trading,” says the complaint. “As a result of his speculative securities trades, Komarow made at least $615,031 in profits. Komarow withdrew those profits from his brokerage accounts at one broker-dealer.”

Komarow, 34, could not be reached at the phone numbers listed in online directories or at his last-known firm. His listed attorney, Bob Frost of Frost Bussert in New Haven, did not return a phone call.

Komarow was terminated by LPL in December of last year after the company claimed he had abused the Automated Clearing House network, which financial institutions use to transfer funds electronically. LPL said in its termination letter that Komarow knowingly processed instructions through the network for his own account without having enough funds and placed trades on credit. He eventually stopped cooperating with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after the matter was reported to them, and Finra barred him from the industry in June.

On his LinkedIn page, Komarow describes himself as a “recovering certified financial planner” and now says he’s working as a software developer and consultant on neurodiversity issues.

His advisory practice, Planning Across the Spectrum, focused on clients with special needs, and he was a particular advocate on neurodiversity issues, working with clients and other advisors on the autism spectrum. In 2021 he was named by the Financial Planning Association to lead a knowledge circle supporting neurodiverse planners and clients, and he had reported his own experience with autism in an InvestmentNews feature in May 2021. An FPA spokesperson told Financial Advisor that Komarow is no longer affilaited with the association, but the knowledge circle continues to meet.

According to the SEC, Komarow’s free-riding scheme left four broker-dealers holding the bag on brokerage account losses worth $3.4 million. It involved high-figure transfers to his broker-dealer accounts from bank accounts that had much less in them. Before the transfers cleared, the agency said, Komarov was able to start making high-risk trades hoping for an immediate payoff. The SEC said this activity went on for a period of three and a half months between October 2022 and January 2023.

In one example, on October 13, 2022, the SEC, redacting the names of the banks and broker-dealers affected, said Komarow “knowingly, or at least recklessly, made a $200,000 automated clearinghouse deposit into his brokerage account at Broker-Dealer 1 from a bank account at Bank A that had less than $60,000 at the time of the requested transfer. Rather than waiting for the ACH transfer to clear, Broker-Dealer 1 allowed Komarow immediate access to the purportedly transferred funds to engage in securities trading. Komarow used that immediate access allowed by Broker-Dealer 1 to make a large number of high-risk trades intended to yield an immediate payoff in his brokerage account. Days later the ACH transfer was rejected for insufficient funds and reversed from Komarow’s brokerage account at Broker-Dealer 1.”

He made similar transfers totaling $500,000 to make high-risk trades the following week, and the SEC said that the bank against rejected the transfers for insufficient funds, “as Komarow’s Bank A account had less than $3,000 at the time he initiated each of the ACH transfers.”

According to Komarow’s BrokerCheck profile, he was with LPL until December 2022. After that, he was briefly with Royal Alliance Associates until this year.